NS Military Worldbuilding Thread No. 12

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Will a soldier’s personal life (for example their family life, political views and religion) be relevant to their soldiering?

[Austrasien]

Will a soldier’s personal life (for example their family life, political views and religion) be relevant to their soldiering?

No. Not really.

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Will a soldier’s personal life (for example their family life, political views and religion) be relevant to their soldiering?

No. Not really.

Thanks

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Is it true that most of the dead in war are male?

[Spirit of Hope]

Is it true that most of the dead in war are male?

Yes, many militaries are male only, and those that aren't are disproportionately male.

[The Manticoran Empire]

Is it true that most of the dead in war are male?

Uh...duh.

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

Is it true that most of the dead in war are male?

Yes, many militaries are male only, and those that aren't are disproportionately male.

Thanks.

[Husseinarti]

Is it true that most of the dead in war are male?

YOU CAN
GOOGLE THIS

This is why I think you have to be some deep-troll because holy fuck how can you not just try to google 90% of what you ask. Its easy as fuck. An uneducated layman could make and educated guess for themselves and not have to waste my finite brain processing on reading literally some of the most basic and virtually self-answering questions.

Lol.

With respect, you’re picking one example and not controlling for other factors. My friend, what are you studying at university? Evidently not a science subject, social or physical.

You literally ask questions I answered when I was like 9. You're trying to talk shit about collegiate level courses of study but can't go onto google and type of "dead in war mostly men???????????????????"

And there is no real correlation between conscript and low morale in an army.

[Gallia-]

Lol.

With respect, you’re picking one example and not controlling for other factors. My friend, what are you studying at university?

"Road signs and lumbar backrests" is my go-to explanation.

[Husseinarti]

With respect, you’re picking one example and not controlling for other factors. My friend, what are you studying at university?

"Road signs and lumbar backrests" is my go-to explanation.

more like studying why they keep calling his cute anime girl a "he"

[The Corparation]

Is it true that most of the dead in war are male?

Good source of war casualties based on gender

[Husseinarti]

Is it true that most of the dead in war are male?

Good source of war casualties based on gender

sorry this doesnt give me the answer i need in 6 seconds and requires me to read and possibly educate myself on something i know nothing about

my brain is smoking rn i cant do this

[Hrstrovokia]

Is there a more accurate term or definition for units below squadron or flight?

Example: I have x4 Tu-95MS grouped together as a Heavy Bomber Flight.

I also have x1 Tu-142MR on it's own as a VLF Comms Relay Element.

Would it make more sense to group all of these together because at least, being Tu-95 variants, they could be maintained easier than separately? And then skip using flights or elements.

[Champagne Socialist Sharifistan]

https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/ ... -conflict/
Googled it.

[Sanghyeok]

Does anyone here know about the general effectiveness of political officers/commissars or political education of soldiers in socialist nations? I would be really appreciative.

[Kassaran]

Commissars get in the way and are just a tool of the bureaucracy to try and get into places it shouldn't.

You can use Element to describe any subordinate formations to a Flight. In AF hierarchy, it's generally Wing-Squadron-Flight-Element iirc.

[Gallia-]

Does anyone here know about the general effectiveness of political officers/commissars or political education of soldiers in socialist nations? I would be really appreciative.

They appeared to be quite good at preventing Tsarist officers from wasting men and materiel in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, but became a bit of a hindrance in 1941-42 as their natural hesitation towards aggressive use of materiel made the Red Army fairly reactive. Where a battalion commander would see an opportunity to rush his tanks forward, the politruk would rescind the order out of fear that it might be some stupid attempt to surrender to the Germans or whatever. Since politruks were trained to basically distrust military men, and had no formal military training, they tended to perceive rational military moves as possible sabotage or moral weaknesses. This was mostly fixed by turning the politruk into the zampolit, which was a politruk with the same military training as his wartime compatriots, on top of his party moral training.

By the end of WW2 the zampolit had evolved into something akin to an executive officer rolled into a senior NCO for Soviet units.

They still had separate chains of command, with their own radio networks, though, but they were more interested in evaluating troops' physical and moral fitness rather than questioning the commanding officer's every decision that involved expenditure of ammo, manpower, or money. This generally means they would organize intra-unit competitions (running, weightlifting, and sportsball games), watch Battleship Potemkin for the 47th time, or whatever. It also helped that the Soviet Army was not the RKKA and not riddled with morally or politically questionable Tsarists, who (wrongly, as it turned out) were considered at high risk for potential wastage or sabotage of fighting effectiveness. FWIW, a lot of Soviet leaders were also politruks, much like how a lot of American presidents were lawyers.

The separate command chain might be a bad thing, but nominally I believe zampolit "command" troops were treated as essentially backup TOCs, giving additional redundancy in transmitting orders; and IMO the potentially disruptive nature of a 1LT saying "you might be pushing them a bit hard captain" is no more disruptive than a CSM saying the same thing.

In wartime the zampolit would probably be in charge of the battalion trains, assuming the XO is at the secondary tactical operations center, and the commanding officer is in the thick of it, while the commander for the field artillery is with artillery group (obviously), or he would accompany the commanding officer into battle with the artillery spotters. This probably depends on how much faith the zampolit's chain of command has on the commander to do his actual job. A good relationship in party terms with the zampolit and the officer would probably result in the former getting off his tail, while a poor relationship might result in the zampolit feeling like he needs to "keep an eye" on the CO. By the Brezhnev era the zampolits no longer had the ability to directly override the commander's authority, and for the most part they fell in step with the commander's ideas (I suspect) if only because they would have needed to have a good working relationship with their CO and the unit under him. A disliked zampolit can be easily shouted down.

A good zampolit is both a fighting officer and a legal-moral adviser for his regiment, battalion, or company. In American terms he might be described as a "fighting JAG" or something.

He both enforces the rule of law of the party and its moral-social aspects, and has to be presentable to both the commanding officer and the rest of the unit as a functionally competent officer. But he also does the job of NCO in that he literally helps the soldiers in their moral development, acting as an advocate for the conscript communists in the unit, and ensuring that they are both fed and taken care of medically, physically, and psychologically. Naturally you can't do everything, so I suspect very good zampolits (in the moral-legal advisory sense) would get shuttled away to protecting fuel trucks and trains, while particularly aggro ones might be on the frontlines fixing bayonets or something.

tl;dr The ideal zampolit is basically a good sergeant major and a tactful legal officer rolled into a mediocre-at-best line officer. He knows what his men are doing and makes sure they're taken care of i.e. not bored/drunk/starving, he knows when to shut up or nut up when it comes to criticism of the CO and whose chains to yank to get things done in the mire of Soviet bureaucracy, and he knows which end of the AK74 to point at the enemy.

Whether this (extremely) lofty ideal was ever attained is a bit questionable though, but the Soviets were stuffed to the gills with hyper optimistic beliefs about people's innate abilities I suppose, and the Soviets also tended to overwork their officers to begin with due to lack of a formal NCO corps, so it's probably not out of the norm.

Non-socialist societies tended to split such a job into two (or three) separate people, usually a judge advocate, a senior NCO, and some sort of personnel officer or maybe a chaplain.

Commissars get in the way and are just a tool of the bureaucracy to try and get into places it shouldn't.

Lol.

The state (or party) has literally every right to muscle its way into the nook and cranny of the battalion it pays for, clothes, owns, operates, and maintains the equipment, materiel, and manpower of.

But I guess if you want to call the JAG a "bureaucratic tool" at the next weekly liberty brief for saying you can't drink and drive, you're free to do so. After all, legal-moral advisory officers of democratic states have never caused militarily relevant confusion among commanding officers.

I frankly did not know until several months after the riots that posse comitatus did not apply. Did MG Covault make the same assumption I did, did he make a mistake (or his JAGs), or was he given guidance?

e: I might make Gallan JAGs a restricted line officer, just to weasel in a cheerier version of a zampolit into its army now that I'm thinking about it.

[The Manticoran Empire]

Does anyone here know about the general effectiveness of political officers/commissars or political education of soldiers in socialist nations? I would be really appreciative.

They appeared to be quite good at preventing Tsarist officers from wasting men and materiel in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, but became a bit of a hindrance in 1941-42 as their natural hesitation towards aggressive use of materiel made the Red Army fairly reactive. Where a battalion commander would see an opportunity to rush his tanks forward, the politruk would rescind the order out of fear that it might be some stupid attempt to surrender to the Germans or whatever. Since politruks were trained to basically distrust military men, and had no formal military training, they tended to perceive rational military moves as possible sabotage or moral weaknesses. This was mostly fixed by turning the politruk into the zampolit, which was a politruk with the same military training as his wartime compatriots, on top of his party moral training.

By the end of WW2 the zampolit had evolved into something akin to an executive officer rolled into a senior NCO for Soviet units.

They still had separate chains of command, with their own radio networks, though, but they were more interested in evaluating troops' physical and moral fitness rather than questioning the commanding officer's every decision that involved expenditure of ammo, manpower, or money. This generally means they would organize intra-unit competitions (running, weightlifting, and sportsball games), watch Battleship Potemkin for the 47th time, or whatever. It also helped that the Soviet Army was not the RKKA and not riddled with morally or politically questionable Tsarists, who (wrongly, as it turned out) were considered at high risk for potential wastage or sabotage of fighting effectiveness. FWIW, a lot of Soviet leaders were also politruks, much like how a lot of American presidents were lawyers.

The separate command chain might be a bad thing, but nominally I believe zampolit "command" troops were treated as essentially backup TOCs, giving additional redundancy in transmitting orders; and IMO the potentially disruptive nature of a 1LT saying "you might be pushing them a bit hard captain" is no more disruptive than a CSM saying the same thing.

In wartime the zampolit would probably be in charge of the battalion trains, assuming the XO is at the secondary tactical operations center, and the commanding officer is in the thick of it, while the commander for the field artillery is with artillery group (obviously), or he would accompany the commanding officer into battle with the artillery spotters. This probably depends on how much faith the zampolit's chain of command has on the commander to do his actual job. A good relationship in party terms with the zampolit and the officer would probably result in the former getting off his tail, while a poor relationship might result in the zampolit feeling like he needs to "keep an eye" on the CO. By the Brezhnev era the zampolits no longer had the ability to directly override the commander's authority, and for the most part they fell in step with the commander's ideas (I suspect) if only because they would have needed to have a good working relationship with their CO and the unit under him. A disliked zampolit can be easily shouted down.

A good zampolit is both a fighting officer and a legal-moral adviser for his regiment, battalion, or company. In American terms he might be described as a "fighting JAG" or something.

He both enforces the rule of law of the party and its moral-social aspects, and has to be presentable to both the commanding officer and the rest of the unit as a functionally competent officer. But he also does the job of NCO in that he literally helps the soldiers in their moral development, acting as an advocate for the conscript communists in the unit, and ensuring that they are both fed and taken care of medically, physically, and psychologically. Naturally you can't do everything, so I suspect very good zampolits (in the moral-legal advisory sense) would get shuttled away to protecting fuel trucks and trains, while particularly aggro ones might be on the frontlines fixing bayonets or something.

tl;dr The ideal zampolit is basically a good sergeant major and a tactful legal officer rolled into a mediocre-at-best line officer. He knows what his men are doing and makes sure they're taken care of i.e. not bored/drunk/starving, he knows when to shut up or nut up when it comes to criticism of the CO and whose chains to yank to get things done in the mire of Soviet bureaucracy, and he knows which end of the AK74 to point at the enemy.

Whether this (extremely) lofty ideal was ever attained is a bit questionable though, but the Soviets were stuffed to the gills with hyper optimistic beliefs about people's innate abilities I suppose, and the Soviets also tended to overwork their officers to begin with due to lack of a formal NCO corps, so it's probably not out of the norm.

Non-socialist societies tended to split such a job into two (or three) separate people, usually a judge advocate, a senior NCO, and some sort of personnel officer or maybe a chaplain.

Commissars get in the way and are just a tool of the bureaucracy to try and get into places it shouldn't.

Lol.

The state (or party) has literally every right to muscle its way into the nook and cranny of the battalion it pays for, clothes, owns, operates, and maintains the equipment, materiel, and manpower of.

But I guess if you want to call the JAG a "bureaucratic tool" at the next weekly liberty brief for saying you can't drink and drive, you're free to do so. After all, legal-moral advisory officers of democratic states have never caused militarily relevant confusion among commanding officers.

I frankly did not know until several months after the riots that posse comitatus did not apply. Did MG Covault make the same assumption I did, did he make a mistake (or his JAGs), or was he given guidance?

e: I might make Gallan JAGs a restricted line officer, just to weasel in a cheerier version of a zampolit into its army now that I'm thinking about it.

Short version: a Political Officer will charge when he should hold, retreat when he should attack, hold when he should retreat.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

Mfw these are the faces you make when HATO are scrapping your OTR-23 for you.

[Santheres]

Lol.

With respect, you’re picking one example and not controlling for other factors. My friend, what are you studying at university? Evidently not a science subject, social or physical.

*** Warned for flamebaiting ***

Is it true that most of the dead in war are male?

YOU CAN
GOOGLE THIS

This is why I think you have to be some deep-troll because holy fuck how can you not just try to google 90% of what you ask. Its easy as fuck. An uneducated layman could make and educated guess for themselves and not have to waste my finite brain processing on reading literally some of the most basic and virtually self-answering questions.

With respect, you’re picking one example and not controlling for other factors. My friend, what are you studying at university? Evidently not a science subject, social or physical.

You literally ask questions I answered when I was like 9. You're trying to talk shit about collegiate level courses of study but can't go onto google and type of "dead in war mostly men???????????????????"

And there is no real correlation between conscript and low morale in an army.

*** Warned for trollnaming and flamebaiting ***

Good source of war casualties based on gender

sorry this doesnt give me the answer i need in 6 seconds and requires me to read and possibly educate myself on something i know nothing about

my brain is smoking rn i cant do this

Is it true that most of the dead in war are male?

Uh...duh.

With respect, you’re picking one example and not controlling for other factors. My friend, what are you studying at university? Evidently not a science subject, social or physical.

You literally ask questions I answered when I was like 9. You're trying to talk shit about collegiate level courses of study but can't go onto google and type of "dead in war mostly men???????????????????"

And there is no real correlation between conscript and low morale in an army.

If you can't say anything constructive, don't say anything at all. Ignore the player if they annoy you. This isn't your club house and you're not required to either read the posts here or post here yourself. If you're not here to ask/answer questions, there's no reason to be here at all.

Or you can keep inching up on losing this thread entirely.

Thanks!

[Gallia-]

Short version: a Political Officer will charge when he should hold, retreat when he should attack, hold when he should retreat.

The short version is literally right there.

Mfw these are the faces you make when HATO are scrapping your OTR-23 for you.

Rip Oka-kun.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

How far can you make ATACMS reach if you so desired? 500 klicks? Otoh LORA is like 400 klicks...

[Gallia-]

idk it would probably need to be a new missile

but if prsm is any indication probably pretty far depending on the propellant used

you could also make it a ramjet missile or something if you really want to get big range mb

[New Vihenia]

How far can you make ATACMS reach if you so desired? 500 klicks? Otoh LORA is like 400 klicks...

If you can make it either Light or pack high fraction of propellant or both, it would take you far. very far.

E.g Weight class of OTR-23 (4360 kg). If you can make somehow make the missile to pack 3700 Kg of propellant or 84% propellant fraction. You can get about 4.6 Km/s and some 2600 km of range.

[Gallia-]

a new way to sling a 500 lbs bomb :thinking: